I've been using NTi Shadow that came bundled with my ReadyNAS Duo for the past few years and it has done the job...but it can be a bit flaky and unstable, although I've worked my way round its bugs.

BUT, I'm doing a clean slate install on my home PC and figured why need to mess about again and just use software that works straight off?

Its for my home PC, so I'm not interested in paying money....as I can just get Shadow working again if I need to.

Got to be something out there...I looked around and most of the articles/threads on the web are like 3-4 years old, so pretty outdated. Plus alot of software I see is pretty vague on what it can do on he freeware version.

What it needs to do is the following:

True real time back up : the very instant I create/save/change a file, its backed up that very instant.

Incremental backup: It only backs up what is changed.

Versioning / revisions : it keeps 3 versions of a changed/deleted file on the NAS

Multiple file/directory sources and destinations: I don't want to backup the whole of drive C in real time, I only need to do it with the user data, which is in several places.

I'm struggling to understand a) why you need such a strict backup regimen for a home PC, and b) why you expect to find a software which will have such a specific combination of features completely for free.

Anyhow, this review of the free version of Genie Timeline seems to rate it pretty highly.

If that doesn't do exactly what you want, here's a very recent group-test of paid-for softwares that might also have free versions.

http://quicklytech.com/ - QuickShadow Backup - I'm not sure all the features you want are available in the free version but certainly the main ones are and you get 30 days to try it out with all the features for free. If there are some advanced features you have to have registration is pretty cheap considering it's a one off payment, personally I've found the free version does everything I want.

Right, chhers for the reples. I've took some time and chugged through all this:

Quickshadow is out as it only has one source and destination, I need several due to data being located in different places.

Rsync better for scheduled not real time...although there is lsyncd, god knows how that works though

Genie timeline...website quotes "Minimum interval between each backup= 8 hours" or 3mins for the paid version...does that imply its NOT real time?

Dropbox etc...Im not ready to upload 500meg to a cloud: With a 1MB upload speed it'd take forever to do the initial backup and I don't want it to affect my internet throughput whilst its maintaining it. Handy for remote filesharing though.

Windows 8...one day. In the near future I aim to build a nice small PC, as the ATX-sized lump I currently have is a bit on the big side. So when I do that, I'll stick a new OEM OS on there.

Strange that there isn't much for free...I mean EaseUS todo is free and its a superb piece of software, like IMG burn, Openoffice etc. I loath to install or buy something that doesn't fit the bill.

Something else I found was this: http://www.bvckup.com/ Which seems ok apart from it doesn't mention file versions.

So I guess the answer is to stick with what I already have: NTi Shadow it is.